Loup Garoux
by Scritch
Summary: We're not human. We don't have an excuse to be weak.
1. Rafe

A/N: This was pretty …"meh" for me. I wrote it one time after I read the book its based on (Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause) and just took out my notebook. It is short because it's a death. Rafe's last thoughts of betrayal, regret, anger and shock at the fact that he was being brought down so. For those of you who haven't read the book – Rafe, Astrid, and Vivian are werewolves (hence the word 'bitch'), and a meat-boy is the nickname werewolves give humans. Love that word…anyways, read, review and enjoy!

Rafael 

            It was almost funny, really.

            He stared down at the open bullet wound in his chest as the silver ripped through his anatomy to punch a hole in his heart, leaving fire in its wake. A part of his mind vaguely wondered at how something so small could so easily penetrate the one most protected place in his body. He snarled in surprise at the pain.

            Funny that of all creatures, a human, a meat-boy dared face him and threaten him.

            And kill him.

            His eyes caught a glimpse of Vivian tackling Astrid to the ground, changing as she leapt through the air. Wasn't it for her that he'd done all this? Wasn't it all just a joke? He blinked, his vision hazy. He'd flirted with Vivian, tried gentle and rough and discarded. When she rejected him for the human, his killer, he'd moved on to Astrid. The red bitch had been more fun, wilder, more accepting. They killed together and he set up his yearmate as the culprit with glee. (Who had he done what for? His eyelids were heavy_._)__

They'd the two of them betrayed him. Vivian with Aiden, and Astrid with Gabriel.

            He wasn't good enough for either of them.

            He stumbled as pain spread through his body, followed by a numbness that made his limbs weigh down as if filled with lead. The red glow of his eyes faded, talons retracted. Cold night air struck his bare back. His shivering quickly became a shudder.

            The meat-boy's white face whirled before him. He bared his teeth to show his alpha canines, only to find that his mouth wouldn't move. Running a thick, swollen tongue over his dull incisors, his throat closed up as he tried to swallow. He was supposed to be invincible! But no, his body betrayed him like everything else.

            His laughter came out as a choked gasp, lungs shutting down.

            Almost funny.


	2. Ulf

A/N:This is the second in the series 'Loup Garoux' I have this habit with writing short stories about very minor characters. Besides Gregory, I think Ulf is quite unexplained, and he interested me when I read the book the second time through – how would I feel if my mother went off to sleep with one of my friends, ignored me all the time, then was killed for being a traitor? I hope you enjoy my interpretation of him! 

Ulf 

            There was a sickening crack, and the red-headed convict fell to the ground; her body bucked, kicked, then lay still. Once dangerous, now useless – ruined meat.

            He clenched his fists, opening and closing them, his claws growing and drawing blood from his palms. Unbidden, unwanted tears made his eyes itch and traced lines through the dirt on his face as the shock began to settle in. She was dead. Astrid, finally gone. His mother. His tears should resemble the mourning of her loss.

            But she hadn't been mother to him in a long time.

            Ulf's blurred gaze was drawn to the prone form of Rafe in his skin. The claws dug in again; something wet and warm trickled and collected in the hollows of his hands. Rafe had only been one of many that had stolen her from him. Rafe, Gabriel, even Esmé for fighting with her, and any good-looking piece of tail that came along. They were all thieves, tearing away from his the one person that should have cared for him most.

            It was the realization that Astrid hadn't needed anyone in order to make excuses to get away from him, that made him sob into his bleeding fists as the pack began to howl around him.

            Blood dripping from his lashes, mixed with the salty tears that he could no longer hold back, he peered through his fingers at Gabriel, viciously searching the leader's face for the pleasure he must have felt at the kill. It was him – Gabriel – his fault! Everything was his fault; Rafe going off with Astrid, Finn pushing him around, thinking he was hot shit, the death, everything…

            There was pain in Gabriel's eyes as he cried out the Law, a burden revealed there. Ulf felt something hot well up inside him, revealing itself in tears, more weakness. The twins, in their fur, nudged closer to him. He wanted them to go away, even in this open space he felt so claustrophobic; but he needed them also, needed someone, anyone, because he had never felt more alone in his life.

            There was another shot, more cries, and he barely had time to register what was happening when he saw Vivian fall, heard Esmé scream, moved for his age-mate's precious meat-boy to run witlessly from the scene of the crime. Ulf shook helplessly as the stress became too much.

            Something pulled him towards the two fallen forms he'd thought he should trust. Passing Rafe's nude, motionless figure, he knelt down at the body of Astrid. His hand reached to stroke her red hair away, revealing the knot of scars where her eye had once been. Her flesh was cold, and the iciness of death chilled him until only the heat in his stomach remained, that pushed to his throat and threatened to make him vomit. The cold consumed him.

            The pack began to disperse much later, but he wasn't aware of time passing. He only knew when a warm, firm hand on his shoulder brought him back. He looked up.

            "Come on, kid," was all Gabriel said. The depth of the compassion there surprised him. He took the offered hand with a fleeting smile, and followed without looking back.


	3. Astrid

**A/N:** Finally, I was able to write the Astrid chapter I've been promising! This actually started out as me writing down my emotions when I heard my mom and older brother fighting… again. Then I started to turn it into a Harry Potter fanfic - and the formatting is actually a lot like my latest one, so if you like this, check that one out! - when I realized it just wasn't going that way – and why couldn't Astrid have family problems? So, it became this! Hope you enjoy.

**Astrid **

"You have condemned yourself with your own words," he began, starting towards her. Astrid drew herself up, as high as she could when in her fur, blood pouring from her sightless eye and the wounds Vivian had inflicted on her. Barely registering his words, she felt nothing.

- - -

_Can't concentrate, can't focus._

_Can't be hurt again._

_She's so scared to go back upstairs. Shaking, she tries to block out the sound of angry voices. She saw the anger in their eyes, and didn't know it could be so frightening. Why do they have to fight? They always fight. Will they ever stop? Mother against son, son against father. It's a bloody battlefield of scars and old wounds opened over and over again._

_She can almost smell the blood._

_That's it. That's what she needs, she thinks as she huddles on the couch in the low-ceiling basement. Blood. The taste of blood in her mouth, the lust for the red, coppery liquid that takes away all pains with it in the joy of the hunt. To escape from the turmoil she will become the hunter tonight._

_Rising, she steps outside into the open night. The peace of the clear sky with its crescent moon is broken – through the open window their voices come, for all to hear. The city, they said, is the place to be. Anonymous._

_Yet already they've carved a reputation for themselves. The rogue family, cast out from their pack on account of bloodlust. Kahn was a weak leader, unable to stomach a true sentence. Exile._

_A shame she can't exile herself from her own family._

_Bathed in the moonlight, she begins the change. _

- - -

"You killed humans for the joy of it. You deliberately endangered the pack and tormented one of your own." He stood in front of her now, eyes boring into her soul.

He can find nothing there but black dust and ashes.

- - -

_"For the last time, Astrid, we're here for the anonymity! Do you have to spell it out in blood and bodies for the world to see?"_

_Do they have to shout it out for the world to hear?_

_"Teenagers. This is why we left the pack," her father growls, fist clenching; when he draws his fingers away, she can see the nails have lengthened. She has scars from those nails. Face expressionless, she exposes her teeth in a feral grin; red stains them as she voices her opinion._

_"No, this is why the pack left us."_

_The growl in his throat deepens, and when she wakes up, her head is pounding and she sees the world from a different angle. From the cracked linoleum floor._

- - -

"You will always be a danger to us." She'd always been a danger to everyone and everything. It was a mark of pride she carried with her, well hidden but always present. Gabriel was so close; she could smell him – his sweat, the cologne he used, and _her_.

- - -

"_You've always been trouble. Bodies in the alleyways and the basement, and you skulking off to join your other whore friends… I should have done this a long time ago._

_"Out. Get out!"_

_Familiar pain as she hits the concrete of the sidewalk. Her mother crying in the background. She gets up and glares at him, flips her red hair over her shoulder. Her eyes flicker to the window above. Her brother sneers down at her, watching from the sidelines, a twisted smile on his face._

_"I never want to see your face again! Or that brat of yours! Out, bitch!"_

_Time to begin the retreat. She lifts her bag up, spits at his feet, enjoying the reaction as his face slowly turns purple with rage._

_Then she is gone._

- - -

"We have no prisons, we have no jailors." Only that which they call home and family.

- - -

_"Welcome to our home, Astrid." Esmé is her age, young, and beautiful, with a little girl clinging to her slim legs. "This is Vivian. Say hi, Vivie," she coos. "This is Astrid and her son Ulf."_

_Remembering her own child, Astrid grabs his chubby little hand and draws him in front of her, nudging him towards the little girl. At least now that he'll have a playmate she won't have to watch him all the time, won't have to worry about him waking up at night when she has… friends over._

_Everyone is relatively friendly – or at least, they're only eyeing her with appreciation rather than cynicism. And best of all, they don't know her. Flashing her most seductive of smiles, she sits down next a young blonde._

_"I think I'm going to like it here," she purrs, careful to draw her sleeve over the slowly healing gashes on her wrist. Something to look forward to._

- - -

"This is the only sentence."

And she was dead long before it.

- - -

A/N: So, whadya think? Don't forget to leave a review! And yes, the cuts on her wrist was from where she tried to kill herself – pretty harsh, considering she has no place to stay and a toddler to look after.


End file.
